Genome Mining Revealed a High Biosynthetic Potential for Antifungal Streptomyces sp. S-2 Isolated from Black Soot

The increasing resistance of fungal pathogens has heightened the necessity of searching for new organisms and compounds to combat their spread. Streptomyces are bacteria that are well-known for the production of many antibiotics. To find novel antibiotic agents, researchers have turned to previously neglected and extreme environments. Here, we isolated a new strain, Streptomyces sp. S-2, for the first time, from black soot after hard coal combustion (collected from an in-use household chimney). We examined its antifungal properties against plant pathogens and against fungi that potentially pose threat to human health (Fusarium avenaceum, Aspergillus niger and the environmental isolates Trichoderma citrinoviridae Cin-9, Nigrospora oryzae sp. roseF7, and Curvularia coatesieae sp. junF9). Furthermore, we obtained the genome sequence of S-2 and examined its potential for secondary metabolites production using anti-SMASH software. The S-2 strain shows activity against all of the tested fungi. Genome mining elucidated a vast number of biosynthetic gene clusters (55), which distinguish this strain from closely related strains. The majority of the predicted clusters were assigned to non-ribosomal peptide synthetases or type 1 polyketide synthetases, groups known to produce compounds with antimicrobial activity

Antifungal activity and biosynthetic potential of new streptomyces sp. MW-W600-10 strain isolated from coal mine water

Crop infections by fungi lead to severe losses in food production and pose risks for human health. The increasing resistance of pathogens to fungicides has led to the higher usage of these chemicals, which burdens the environment and highlights the need to find novel natural biocontrol agents. Members of the genus Streptomyces are known to produce a plethora of bioactive compounds. Recently, researchers have turned to extreme and previously unexplored niches in the search for new strains with antimicrobial activities. One such niche are underground coal mine environments. We isolated the new Streptomyces sp. MW-W600-10 strain from coal mine water samples collected at 665 m below ground level. We examined the antifungal activity of the strain against plant pathogens Fusarium culmorum DSM62188 and Nigrospora oryzae roseF7. Furthermore, we analyzed the strain’s biosynthetic potential with the antiSMASH tool. The strain showed inhibitory activity against both fungi strains. Genome mining revealed that it has 39 BGCs, among which 13 did not show similarity to those in databases. Additionally, we examined the activity of the Streptomyces sp. S-2 strain isolated from black soot against F. culmorum DSM62188. These results show that coal-related strains could be a source of novel bioactive compounds. Future studies will elucidate their full biotechnological potential

Data from: Rare events of massive plant reproductive investment lead to long-term density-dependent reproductive success

1. The level of reproductive investment and density and distance dependent (DDD) processes are major determinants of plant reproductive output. The reproductive investment of a plant population varies temporally, but whether and how density- and distance-dependent processes are affected by population-level reproductive investment is a puzzle. 2. We used a spatially explicit approach in order to examine DDD effects on Sorbus acuparia crop sizes for a continuous period of 16 years. Our special interest was to investigate whether and how DDD processes affect long-term individual plant reproductive success (PRS) and whether such processes vary between years of relatively high and low population-level reproductive investment, measured as fruit crop size. 3. Our study revealed that DDD processes of fruit crop relate to population level reproductive investment. In most years, including all years with low and most years with moderate reproductive investment, no positive or negative DDD was found for PRS. However, significant negative density-dependent effects were found during most years of high and some years of moderate reproductive investment. During these years, the individual reproductive success decreased with increasing density of conspecifics. 4. The overall accumulated long-term negative density-dependent pattern of PRS was determined by few sporadic years of high reproductive investment, rather than by the most frequent years of low or moderate reproductive investment, when the DDD effects were usually weak. 5. Synthesis. Our study highlights the ecological relevance of relatively infrequent processes which affect PRS, stressing thus the importance of long-term ecological research

Fruit production

The study was done in a subalpine old-growth spruce forest in Babia Góra National Park in the Western Carpathians (southern Poland). We established a 27-hectare plot representing subalpine spruce forest on the north slope of the Babia Góra massif. From 2000 to 2015, all reproductive trees (n = 242-367) were searched for fruits at the beginning of September